Clearly, I am guilty of
being a blogging slacker for....more than a year now. Was there a method behind
this blog-omission madness? Yes. Truthfully, though one part of me felt
undeniably compelled to write something about my surgical experience a year ago
October, the other 99 percent of me just wanted to act like it never happened,
or at least to put all the bad memories behind me.
On Oct. 19, 2011, I went
in for a laparoscopic surgery that was slated to be routine, where the doctor
would remove 3 or 4 growths and a routine healing time of about 3 weeks was
expected. I went in with some trepidation, OK a lot of trepidation, never
having had surgery in my cognizant years, but being reassured by my doctor and
his nurse practitioner that my recovery would be very short and nothing to
worry about. (I did have a hernia closure surgery as an infant, but luckily, I
don’t recall too much about it!)
While I was sleeping off
the general anesthesia after surgery, the doctor came out and told Jon that my
surgery was the most extensive he had done in his medical career. Instead of 3
or 4 growths, he’d removed 19 growths plus a little endo for good
measure. He also performed a D&C.
But all I remember is,
probably an hour or two after surgery, awakening to the sound of a female
nurse’s voice, kindly telling me it was time to get up, like a cheerful mother
on a school morning. But instead of handing me my lunchbox, she gave me a
plastic container that I might need to vomit into, and a small packet
containing a hospital alcohol wipe that I could sniff if I felt like vomiting,
she said. At her request, I then walked out to the lobby on unstable legs. My vision
was unfocused, and my mind had no coherent thoughts. I felt like I was walking
on air, brainlessly, effortlessly yet wobbly. The ground seemed to be shifting
a bit under me, though no one else noticed.
Somehow I got into the car
(Jon would have to tell you the details) and we made the 45-minute drive home.
I woke up from a dreamlike-yet-absolutely-dreamless sleep when we got to our
street, just in time for the hairpin curve onto our street. The car shifting
suddenly to one side brought pain to the surgical area. My first bit of pain. I somehow got to
bed with Jon’s help after we got home, feeling no pain at that time and
feeling simply mindless and beyond exhausted.
A while later, I got up for
the first time to go to the bathroom at home after surgery. (Jon had to help me
for weeks to do that walk, and to get up from a lying down position.) But on
that first sojourn to the toilet – I wasn’t aware my body could even feel that
horrid. The room was absolutely spinning, and my stomach felt like it would be
inside my mouth at any moment. (I guess it’s a good thing I hadn’t eaten
anything yet that day!) Jon and I tried to watch an episode of Covert Affairs
that night or the next night, and I was so tired and loopy from the Percocet
that I couldn’t follow the episode’s plot and fell into some sort of
drug-induced waking sleep, which then turned into real, dreamless sleep. After
a couple of days, post-anesthesia symptoms subsided though, of course.
Nevertheless, my doctor
was dumbfounded as I went in for my one-, two-, then three-week recovery
checkups, as my Herculean pain did not coincide with the cookie-cutter
predicted recovery time. And even less validating: He said he hadn’t heard of
anyone having trouble walking, sitting, standing, or lying down normally after
this type of surgery. (Remember the most-extensive-surgery-of-his-career reference? Is it really that shocking? Also, remember those 19 growths plus the endo? Each has to be severed from organ tissues, which then sustain the injuries.)
[As an aside: The medical
community seems to think that just because they go in laparoscopically, that
everyone will have a cookie-cutter, wham boom bam, thank you ma’am recovery.
But the cold, hard reality: Um, yeah, it’s still surgery. I’m a firm believer
that it’s what they do inside the
body that matters.]
Needless to say, it turned into an
8-month recovery, which included 3 full months of actual internal surgical pain recovery, in addition to 5 months of physical therapy thereafter to treat pelvic floor issues; adhesions that painfully pulled at my groin and throughout my frontal pelvic area; and the intense, relentless, movement-restricting pain present 24/7 in the muscles running through the front, sides, and back of my pelvic region post-surgery. (Physical therapy isn't ever expected for the sort of surgery I had, apparently, but luckily my befuddled surgeon took pity on me and chose to believe what I was telling him; thus, he signed an insurance authorization for the therapy.) I
recently recounted the details of my surgery to yet another doctor, who also looked
at me with a deer-in-the-headlights expression. Go figure. Yes, I realize my
recovery was not typical by any means, but I’m not the only one to have had such problems recovering from gynecological
surgery. Just read some of the online blogs at the women’s health forums.
Problems like I had are rare, but they do happen.
What’s most important: I
still thank God (literally) for His efforts in helping me to heal, and for my
patient husband, who helped me get through that time by doing piles and piles
of laundry and all the cleaning and dishes for months on end, all the driving, and SO much
more. I also thank Heavenly Father for my patient, understanding, and absolutely inspired
physical therapist, who had
previously worked with women who had experienced similar post-surgical pain and
issues. Finally, someone "got it." (Not that I would wish it on anyone.) Her expertly administered myofascial release therapy, in addition to prescribed physical therapy exercises and lots of encouragement, gave me my life back. Literally. Not being
able to walk, sit, stand, or lie down normally nor without inordinate pain –
well, it sucked to be me for several months. (Think about it – you’re basically always
doing one of those four things.)
But now, a year and one
month later, I can do everything I used to, and without any apparent pain or
restrictions, though I still do my physical therapy exercises religiously each
morning, to make sure everything stays where it should be!
As a result of my long recovery,
when I do laundry, I now think how grateful I am that I can actually lift the
basket and bend over to mindlessly switch laundry from one machine to the
other. I can lift a heavy pot of water now. When I go to the grocery store now, I can drive myself, and I can push a
cart without pain, and I can walk for more than 5 minutes down the aisles
without needing to sit down or go back to the car because of the rapidly escalating, searing pain. I'm also grateful when Jon and
I take a walk down our long, hilly, desert-scenic road that I can walk for more
than 2 or 3 minutes without feeling debilitating, stabbing pain. I'm grateful that I don't have to secretly wait inside or outside any public ladies’ room anymore for someone else to open the door for me because I
can't do so for myself. (I could push doors open, barely and with great effort until I could barely slip through the crack, but when there was a handle, not so much. So I would wait covertly for help, loitering either inside the
bathroom by the mirror or just outside the door if it looked like someone was
going in. Then when I would see them grab that shiny door handle in readiness to open that magic
door, I would rush over to the door, oh so casually, and they would always then
naturally hold the door open for me at that point because I was right there in
the way.) That was among the most humbling aspects of the recovery, though there were many.
I was so scared for so
long that my life might never be the same, that I might have to live with severe chronic pain and dysfunction – pain and dysfunction
that I didn’t have before surgery. But….it all worked out.
I learned that Heavenly
Father and Jesus Christ are there waiting to help us as we call upon Them. They
might not always change our circumstances, but They will comfort us and help us
get through our darkest hours and most painful challenges.
Though I don’t want to
dwell on it, I hope I do remember the things I learned from my surgical ordeal,
and I know that I really have SO much to be grateful for this Thanksgiving.
